Kings pursued Marian Hossa hard, but were unable to work out a deal with the former Red Wing

The LA Daily News's Rich Hammond reports that the Los Angeles Kings did their damndest to sign Marian Hossa after the Red Wings gave the Kings the rights to speak to Ritch Winter:

July 2, LA Daily News: General manager Dean Lombardi said the Kings, and two other teams, had secured exclusive negotiating rights with Hossa before July 1, and would have owed compensation to Detroit if they had signed Hossa. Ultimately though, Lombardi said, Hossa decided to sign with a team with a more immediate chance of winning.

Lombardi said the Kings were only prepared to offer, at most, a three-year contract to [Marian] Gaborik, who had been presumed to be one of their top targets entering the summer.

"When you're under the gun and you'd like to do something," Lombardi said, "Thats when you go out and do something that you really don't like, that you regret, and then you get buyer's remorse."

The Kings also targeted forward Mike Knuble, who signed with Washington. Lombardi said Knuble was one of his top targets, but that Knuble ultimately decided to stay in the Eastern Conference. Another Kings target, Martin Havlat, signed with Minnesota late Wednesday.

Hammond's blog contains more quotes from Lombardi (and thanks to Dee for the link):

July 1, LA Daily News: Question: Can you go through the day, and talk about anything you might have been close to getting done?

LOMBARDI: ``Obviously we went into this for wingers. Like I've said, it's one of the positives of being in our situation now, as opposed to three years ago, when we were looking for everything and signing seven guys. The No. 1 guy we targeted was Hossa. I got permission to talk to Hossa at the draft. There were three teams, us and two others. Detroit gave me permission, and we started the dialogue at that time. Detroit, if he got signed, they would get compensation. We met with his agent there, at that time, and he was interested in L.A. He said he thinks we could be the next Chicago. But he said, `That's down the road,' and that's fair, that's realistic. He said it was important to go to a 100-point team. I said, `I don't know if we can guarantee that, but you're the type of player we're prepared to commit to.' He was the one player we thought was a top player. I don't know that he's a `mail carrier' type guy, but he's still a top player.

``That dialogue continued until July 1. He was throwing (contract) numbers out there, but it was very vague in terms of numbers. We talked again last night and I got the sense that this was probably going in a different direction. I said, `What would it take?' but we never really got an answer. I think he had his eye on something else already. We thought it was Boston. He told us this morning that it was probably unlikely that he would come here. It wasn't really the 12-year term that got us out of it. It never got to that point. Part of this is that you're frustrated, but the other part is that you want guys like that. I've always said you want guys who want to win first. And you look at Chicago, where they've come in the last seven drafts and where they're at. Chicago, it took six years; we're three years in. That's the process they went through, and then they broke through. We're hoping that if we break through like they did, we can compete (for players) at that level. We were prepared to talk about the cash and the 12 years.

``The other guy we looked at was Mike Knuble. He's certainly not the big name, but we knew his character inside out. That would have been a nice player to get. Obviously we knew him and Murph (Terry Murray) had him. In the end, it comes out that he wants to stay in the East. And again, he went to a top team in Washington. So those are the two guys we really targeted.''

July 2, Los Angeles Times: General Manager Dean Lombardi said Wednesday night he had targeted two right wings: Hossa and Mike Knuble, a six-time 20-goal scorer with good size and character. Lombardi got permission from Detroit to talk to Hossa before free agency began but said he learned Wednesday morning that Hossa was leaning toward a contender and a creative payment plan.

Hossa's deal, which goes past his 42nd birthday, is worth $62.8 million for an annual cap hit of $5.23 million. Insert your own joke about the Blackhawks being doomed to lose in the Stanley Cup final, as Hossa's Pittsburgh Penguins did in 2008 and his Red Wings did a few weeks ago.

"He was the one guy we were willing to extend ourselves for," Lombardi said.